[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 1, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S549-S552]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Nomination of Betsy DeVos
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I come to the floor to announce a very
difficult decision that I have made; that is, to vote against the
confirmation of Betsy DeVos to be our Nation's next Secretary of
Education. This is not a decision that I have made lightly. I have a
great deal of respect for Mrs. DeVos. I believe she is a good person. I
know she cares deeply about the children of this Nation. But for the
reasons that I will explain, I simply cannot support her confirmation.
Later today, the Senate will vote on a motion to proceed to the DeVos
nomination. I will vote to proceed to the nomination because I believe
that Presidents are entitled to considerable deference for the
selection of Cabinet members, regardless of which political party is in
power, and that each and every Senator should have the right to cast
his or her vote on nominees for the Cabinet. That is why, during
President Obama's administration, I voted for procedural motions,
including cloture, to allow the President's nominees for Secretary of
Defense and for Secretary of Labor to receive up-or-down votes by the
full Senate, even though I ultimately voted against those two nominees
on the Senate floor. At the time, I stated that it is appropriate for
every Senator to have an opportunity to vote for or against an
individual Cabinet member, and I still believe that is the right
approach.
Let me again make clear what I said at the beginning of my remarks,
which explains why this has been a decision that I have not made
lightly. I know that Mrs. DeVos cares deeply about children. I
recognize that she has devoted much time and resources to try to
improve the education of at-risk children in cities whose public
schools have failed them. I commend her for those efforts.
I wrote to Mrs. DeVos, seeking her assurances in writing that she
would not support any Federal legislation mandating that States adopt
vouchers nor would she condition Federal funding on the presence of
voucher programs in States. She has provided that commitment, and I ask
unanimous consent that the exchange of correspondence with Mrs. DeVos
be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.
Nevertheless, like all of us, Mrs. DeVos is the product of her
experience. She appears to view education through the lens of her
experience in promoting alternatives to public education in Detroit and
other cities where she has, no doubt, done valuable work. Her
concentration on charter schools and vouchers, however, raises the
question about whether she fully appreciates that the Secretary of
Education's primary focus must be on helping States and communities,
parents, teachers, school board members, and administrators strengthen
our public schools.
While it is unrealistic and unfair to expect a nominee to know the
details
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of all the programs under the jurisdiction of the Department of
Education, I am troubled and surprised by Mrs. DeVos's apparent lack of
familiarity with the landmark 1975 law, the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act--known as the IDEA--that guarantees a free
and appropriate education to children with special needs.
The mission of the Department of Education is broad, but supporting
public education is at its core. I am concerned that Mrs. DeVos's lack
of experience with public schools will make it difficult for her to
fully understand, identify, and assist with those challenges,
particularly for our rural schools in States like Maine.
In keeping with my past practice, I will vote today to proceed to
debate on Mrs. DeVos's nomination. But I will not, I cannot, vote to
confirm her as our Nation's next Secretary of Education.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC, January 24, 2017.
Mrs. Betsy DeVos,
Education Secretary-Designate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mrs. DeVos: I am writing to follow up on the questions
posed to you in your confirmation hearing regarding your
position on school vouchers should you be confirmed as
Secretary of Education. I have concerns about the impact of
such a voucher program, especially on rural school districts
with limited budgets and numbers of students.
The needs of public schools in Maine are very different
from those in large urban areas, where some schools have
failed our children. The majority of Maine's schools and
school districts are small and rural, and the constraints on
resources and the realities of distance greatly influence the
policies and practices for delivering high-quality education
in those settings. The concern I hear in Maine from teachers,
administrators, and parents is that school vouchers will
divert scarce resources from public schools.
During my time as a U.S. Senator, I have visited more than
200 schools in Maine. At each visit, I have seen repeatedly
the skilled and dedicated teachers, administrators, and staff
working closely with parents to deliver the best possible
education for their students. Likewise, I have spoken with
students who are vibrant members of their communities and
excited about learning. Our public schools have a tremendous
impact on students and communities, and the U.S. Department
of Education is an important partner in fulfilling the
promise of high-quality public education for all students.
Please respond in writing to the following question: Would
you oppose a federal mandate that would require states to
adopt private school vouchers? I ask that you respond prior
to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee mark-up on January 31.
Sincerely,
Susan M. Collins,
United States Senator.
____
January 25, 2017.
Hon. Susan Collins,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Collins: Thank you for the opportunity to
answer your question about my position on federal education
mandates regarding private school vouchers.
As a strong proponent of local control, I believe the
decision of whether to provide vouchers, scholarships, or
other public support for students who choose to attend a
nonpublic school should not be mandated by the federal
government. Rather, this is a state and school district
matter.
The Every Student Succeeds Act made great strides in
returning control over education decisions to states and
local communities, and I applaud your efforts in passing that
important law. Decisions about whether to provide parental
choice will vary from state to state and district to
district, reflecting local needs.
As I stated during my confirmation hearing before the U.S.
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on
January 17, while I am a strong supporter of school choice, I
am also respectful of state and local decisions on this
issue. Therefore, if confirmed, I will not impose a school
choice program on any state or school district.
Senator Collins, I look forward to working with you to
support Maine's teachers, schools and districts as they work
to provide a high quality education to every student.
Sincerely,
Betsy DeVos.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak on the
upcoming motion to proceed to the DeVos nomination for a period of 5
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I would like to share my thoughts with
my colleagues today about the President's nominee to be Secretary of
Education. I shared many of these thoughts yesterday with my colleagues
on the Senate HELP Committee.
Like my colleague from Maine, this nomination has been a very
difficult one for me. It has been very personal. As I mentioned in
committee, I take very personally the education of the children in my
State. I take very personally the contributions that our educators, our
administrators in the schools--all that they provide and the importance
that we should all place on the education of America's children.
I don't think it is an overstatement to say that I have struggled
with how I will cast my vote on the nomination of Mrs. DeVos. Again, I
take very personally the success of Alaska's schools and the success of
Alaska's schoolchildren. We have a lot of schools in Alaska, as we all
do around the country. My schools, I would challenge you all, are a
little bit more diverse than perhaps in other parts of America just
because of our geography. We are isolated. Eighty-two percent of the
communities are not attached by a road. The communities are small. The
schools are smaller.
In our urban centers, what some find unusual is we have more
diversity in our populations than most people could understand or even
imagine. One of the neighborhoods in my hometown of Anchorage hosts the
most ethnically diverse schools in the United States of America. So I
have urban schools that have rich diversity, and I have very rural,
very remote, extremely remote schools that face challenges when it
comes to how we deliver education. So knowing that we have the
strongest public school system is a priority for me.
I have spent considerable time one-on-one with Mrs. DeVos before and
after the committee hearing. I spent the entirety of the Senate HELP
Committee listening carefully to the questions that colleagues put to
her. Afterward, I reviewed not only her written responses to me but
those that she had responded to other colleagues. I requested further
that she provide certain commitments in writing. After speaking with
her at length and considering everything that I have learned, I have
the following comments to share:
First, I must state that I absolutely believe Betsy DeVos cares
deeply for all children. I think we all acknowledge that she could have
spent her time, her energy, and her considerable resources on almost
anything else that she chose to do. I admire her for choosing to help
children to access a better education because she could have chosen to
do many other things, but she chose to work for children, and I
appreciate that.
Now, as Senators, we are in the position to provide advice and
consent on the President's nominee. My view has been--and has been
since I came to the U.S. Senate--that under almost all circumstances, a
President has the right to have their nominees considered and to
receive a full vote by the entire Senate.
So I have gone back, and I have looked at how I, as a Senator, have
handled confirmations under President Bush and President Obama. When
cloture votes have been called on Cabinet nominees, my practice has
been to vote aye. I voted aye twice for Secretary of Defense Hagel. I
voted aye for Secretary of Labor Perez, even though I voted against his
confirmation in the final vote.
So, Mrs. DeVos.
She has answered thousands of questions that have been put to her.
Neither the Office of Government Ethics, the Senate HELP Committee, nor
I have found any substantive reason to question Mrs. DeVos's name or
reputation, but yet I have heard from thousands--truly thousands of
Alaskans who share their concerns about Mrs. DeVos as Secretary of
Education. They
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have contacted me by phone, by email, in person, and their concerns
center--as mine do--on Mrs. DeVos's lack of experience with public
education and the lack of knowledge she portrayed in her confirmation
hearing.
Alaskans are not satisfied that she would uphold Federal civil rights
laws in schools that receive Federal funds. They question her
commitment to students with disabilities' rights under IDEA. They fear
that the voucher programs that are intended to serve them may actually
rob them of the opportunity to benefit from an education in an
inclusive environment with their nondisabled peers.
After 8 years of the micromanagement that we have seen from this
previous administration, quite honestly, they are very concerned that
Mrs. DeVos will force vouchers on Alaska. Now, she has said that she
has not. She has committed publicly and to me personally that she will
not seek to impose vouchers on our States. She has committed to
implementing Federal education laws as they are written and intended,
and this is a welcome departure from what we had seen with the two
previous Secretaries of Education.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for an
additional 1\1/2\ minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Thank you, Mr. President.
She has committed that the focus she will give, not only to Alaska
but to all States will not undermine, erode, or ignore public schools
and that she will, in fact, work to support our public schools. She has
committed to me that she will come to Alaska in order to learn from
Alaska's educators, our parents, school board members, and our tribal
representatives to see for herself the challenges we face.
I still continue to have concerns. I think Mrs. DeVos has much to
learn about our Nation's public schools, how they work and the
challenges they face.
I have serious concerns about a nominee to be Secretary of Education
who has been so involved in one side of the equation--so immersed in
the push for vouchers--that she may be unaware of what actually is
successful within the public schools and also what is broken and how to
fix them.
Betsy DeVos must show us that she truly understands the children of
Alaska and across America, both urban and rural, who are not able to
access an alternative choice in education, as in so many of my
communities. She must show us that she will work to help the struggling
public schools that strive to educate children whose parents are unable
to drive them across town to get to a better school. That she will not
ignore the homeless students whose main worry is finding somewhere safe
to sleep and for whom their public school is truly a refuge. And that
she will fight for the children whose parents don't even know how to
navigate these educational options.
I believe that my colleagues here in the Senate and the many, many
they represent have the right to debate these questions, to air their
thoughts and concerns and perspectives about this nomination, and again
I believe that any President has the right to expect that we do so.
I conclude my remarks to make clear that my colleagues know firmly
that I do not intend to vote, on final passage, to support Mrs. DeVos
to be Secretary of Education. I thank the chairman of the committee for
working with me and with my colleagues on this matter, but I cannot
support this nominee.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I come to the floor to thank the
Senator from Alaska and the Senator from Maine for this reason: They
are following a long and venerable tradition in the United States
Senate that too many Senators do not follow. They are allowing--despite
their final view on the substance of an issue--the full Senate to make
a decision on an important issue.
It used to be that a motion to proceed to an issue was routine. It
used to be that after a certain period of time, we would cut off the
vote so we could have an up-or-down vote, 51, on an important issue.
We have gotten away from that, but Senator Collins and Senator
Murkowski have been among the most consistent Senators who would say,
absent extraordinary circumstances, ``I am going to vote to allow the
vote to come to the floor so the full Senate can make its decision,''
and I thank them for that.
Madam President, as to Mrs. DeVos, I ask unanimous consent to have
printed in the Record, following my remarks, an article about why the
Senate should promptly confirm Betsy DeVos as U.S. Education Secretary,
which I believe it will do so.
Mrs. DeVos will be an excellent Education Secretary. She has
commitment to public education. She has said that. There is no better
example of that than her work on the most important reform of public
schools in the last 30 years, which is charter schools.
Charter public schools are the fastest growing form of public
education to give teachers more freedom and parents more choices, and
she has been at the forefront of that public school activity. Second,
she has spent her time truly helping to give low-income parents more
choices and better schools for their children, but is that a reason not
to support her? I would be surprised if any President supported an
Education Secretary who didn't support charter schools. I would be
surprised if a Republican President nominated an Education Secretary
who didn't believe in school choice.
What I especially like about Mrs. DeVos is that she believes in the
local school board, instead of the national school board. She has made
it clear that there will be no mandates from Washington to adopt Common
Core in Arkansas or Tennessee if she is the Education Secretary, there
will be no mandate in Washington to evaluate teachers in Washington
State this way or that way if she is the Secretary, and there will be
no mandate from Washington to have vouchers in Maine or Alaska if she
is the Secretary.
She believes in the bill we passed in December of 2015, with 85
votes, that restores to States and classroom teachers and local school
boards the responsibility for making decisions about standards, about
tests, about how to help improve schools, about how to evaluate
teachers. That passed because people were so sick and tired of
Washington telling local schools so much about what to do.
She will be that kind of Education Secretary. She will be an
excellent Education Secretary. The two Senators have followed a
venerable and honorable tradition in the Senate by saying they will
vote to allow the full Senate to consider her nomination, and when we
do, I am confident she will be confirmed.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows: [Jan. 24, 2017]
Senate Should Promptly Confirm Betsy DeVos
(By Sen. Lamar Alexander)
Democrats desperately are searching for a valid reason to
oppose Betsy DeVos for U.S. Education Secretary because they
don't want Americans to know the real reason for their
opposition.
That real reason? She has spent more than three decades
helping children from low-income families choose a better
school. Specifically, Democrats resent her support for
allowing tax dollars to follow children to schools their low-
income parents' choose--although wealthy families choose
their children's schools every day.
Tax dollars supporting school choice is hardly subversive
or new. In 2016, $121 billion in federal Pell Grants and new
student loans followed 11 million college students to
accredited public, private or religious schools of their
choice, whether Notre Dame, Yeshiva, the University of
Tennessee or Nashville's auto diesel college. These aid
payments are, according to Webster's--``vouchers''--exactly
the same form of payments that Mrs. DeVos supports for
schools.
America's experience with education vouchers began in 1944
with the GI Bill. As veterans returned from World War II,
federal tax dollars followed them to the college of their
choice.
Why, then, is an idea that helped produce the Greatest
Generation and the world's best colleges such a dangerous
idea for our children?
Mrs. DeVos testified that she opposes Washington, D.C.,
requiring states to adopt vouchers, unlike her critics who
delight in a
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National School Board imposing their mandates on states, for
example, Common Core academic standards.
So, who is in the mainstream here? The GI Bill, Pell
Grants, student loans, both Presidents Bush, President Trump,
the 25 states that allow parents to choose among public and
private schools, Congress with its passage of the Washington,
D.C. voucher program, 45 U.S. senators who voted in 2015 to
allow states to use existing federal dollars for vouchers,
Betsy DeVos--or her senate critics?
The second reason Democrats oppose Mrs. DeVos is that she
supports charter schools--public schools with fewer
government and union rules so that teachers have more freedom
to teach and parents have more freedom to choose the schools.
In 1992, Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor party created a
dozen charter schools. Today there are 6,800 in 43 states and
the District of Columbia. President Obama's last Education
Secretary was a charter school founder. Again, who is in the
mainstream? Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor party,
Presidents Bush, Clinton and Obama; the last six U.S.
Education Secretaries, the U.S. Congress, 43 states and the
District of Columbia, Betsy DeVos--or her senate critics?
Her critics dislike that she is wealthy. Would they be
happier if she had spent her money denying children from low-
income families choices of schools?
Mrs. DeVos' senate opponents are grasping for straws. We
didn't have time to question her, they say, even though she
met with each one of them in their offices, and her hearing
lasted nearly an hour and a half longer than either of
President Obama's education secretaries.
Now she is answering 837 written follow up questions from
Democratic committee members--1,397 if you include all the
questions within a question. By comparison, Republicans asked
President Obama's first education secretary 53 written
follow-up questions and his second education secretary 56
written follow-up questions, including questions within a
question. In other words, Democrats have asked Mrs. DeVos 25
times as many follow-up questions as Republicans asked of
either of President Obama's education secretaries.
Finally, Democrats are throwing around conflict of interest
accusations. But Betsy DeVos has signed an agreement with the
independent Office of Government Ethics to divest, within 90
days of her confirmation, possible conflicts of interest
identified by the ethics office, as every cabinet secretary
is required to do. That agreement is on the internet.
Tax returns? Federal law does not require disclosure of tax
returns for cabinet members, or for U.S. Senators. Both
cabinet members and senators are already required to publish
extensive disclosures of their holdings, income and debts.
Cabinet members must also sign an agreement with the Office
of Government Ethics to eliminate potential conflicts of
interest.
One year ago, because I believe presidents should have
their cabinet in place in order to govern, I worked to
confirm promptly President Obama's nomination of John King to
be Education Secretary, even though I disagreed with him.
Even though they disagree with her, Democrats should also
promptly confirm Betsy DeVos. Few Americans have done as much
to help low-income students have a choice of better schools.
She is on the side of our children. Her critics may resent
that, but this says more about them than it does about her.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.